Bleacher Bums Forum

Interesting revisionist discussions of Verlander.

Despite the suggestion that Verlander might not have performed well with anyone other than the Astros, in 2018 he has a home ERA of 3.13 in Houston and 2.09 on the road.  OPS+ allowed in 2018 of 80 at home and 61 on the road.  Last year, after the trade he only pitched in five games for the Astros, three on the road allowing 3 earned runs in 20 innings, and two games at home allowing one earned run in 14 innings.

The Astros gave up Cameron Daz, a disappointing 20 year old CF 2015 first round draft pick (37th overall)   Franklin Perez, a 19 year old international signing starting pitcher who was at AA with a 3.09 ERA in 30 innings and Jake Rogers, a 22 year old former 3rd round draft pick catcher who had 18 HR and a .261 BA in about 500 PA between low and high A teams in 2017.  Not bums, but no shining lights there, and a decent chance that none of them will ever play a single game in the majors.

The Quintana trade was two weeks earlier -- July 13th.  Verlander was at the deadline.

In Cease and Jiminez the Cubs gave up two absolute high level prospects for Quintana, and two more throw ins.  (Matt Rose was a former 11th round draft pick  OF/1B who has a minor league career BA of .227 with an OPS of .703 in more than 1400 AB and Bryant Fleet, a 24 year old international signing utility player then in high A ball and now with a .256 career BA and a .695 OPS after just short of 2200 career minor league AB http://bbf.createaforum.com/general-discussion/cubs-in-'18/msg354084/#new )  Cease and Jimenez this year have done nothing to reduce their value or expectations.

Jimenez was ranked the 17th best prospect preseason last year, the 4th best preseason this year, and folks are now clamoring for the Sox to call him up after hitting .360 with an an ops above 1.0 and a K rate below 15% in AAA.

This seems to be about the middle of the Verlander discussion last year.  I was not a big fan of going after him, but not strongly opposed.  Reb seemed to be a fan, Craig seemed to lean against, CUBluejays supported, brjones strongly opposed, davep seemed to lean strongly against, deeg wanted the Cubs to stongly go after Darvish in the off season, Ron wanted him (if the prospect price was not too high), Dusty (not surprisingly) just wanted to see Verlander's wife in crowd cutaways during games.... then when the actual trade deadline reports were that the Tigers wanted Baez or Happ for Verlander, support for the move seemed to evaporate, though Robb and deeg still supported going after him.

The discussion of the Quintana trade is here.http://bbf.createaforum.com/archives/cubs-in-'17-reigning-champions-edition/2700/  Dusty, tico, playtwo and CUBluejays liked it.  Most of the rest of us were quite unhappy with it.

The Quintana trade was two weeks earlier -- July 13th.  Verlander was at the deadline.

Verlander was traded at the August 31st deadline after clearing waivers, but no team wanted to get stuck with the entire contract.

He also had 7.2 WAR in 2016 and ended up with 4.7 WAR before the trade.


I get that being wrong makes you desperate to argue no one else could have been right.  Doesn't make it true, though.

Verlander's 1st half stats are exactly what he posted prior to the Quintana trade, 18 GS, 104.2 IP, 108H,  8.43 K/9, 4.39 BB/9, 4.73 ERA, 4.29 FIP, 5.03 xFIP.

After the Qunitana trade and before he was traded we went 10 GS, 67.1 IP, 2.41 ERA, 10.43 K/9, 2.14 BB/9, 2.41 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 3.45 xFIP.

Where do you think most of the WAR was obtained?

Trading for Verlander over Quintana on July 13th only makes sense if you have knowledge of what happened after July 13th.  If you can honestly make a compelling argument that 1st half Verlander and his contract was a better acquisition than Quintana his control at $34+ million through 2020 was better I'd love to hear it.  But you need to use his stats up July 13, not after. 

After Verlander turned it around he was somebody I wanted the Cubs to target.  His 1st half numbers look at lot like Yu Davish's numbers with Cubs with less strike outs, so maybe there is still hope for Darvish.  I'd still do the Quintana trade, but having Eloy and Cease could have led to a lot pitcher at this deadline, but again that is hindsight helped.

Gordo raises kind of an interesting point on Hamels:

Theoretically, the Cubs could allow the Rangers to pay the buyout and then work out a free agent deal with Hamels – say, two years, $30 million, which would reduce the luxury-tax-related impact to $15 million.

I wonder - could the Cubs "decline", make the Rangers pay the $6 million, and then, say, give Hamels a 1 year/$15 million contract?  Hamels comes out a mil ahead and the Cubs have $5 million less of a cap hit.

I think I suggested that when we got him and Jeff opined that we'd probably hear from the Commissioner's office...and the Rangers.

From Bruce Miles - something new for the baseball analysts to mull over

"I feel like days games, if I'm able to get this old body going, I feel like I see the ball better during the day," he said. "I don't know, I've seen something before that people who have darker eyes happen to see the ball better in the day, and (players with) lighter eyes, they struggle a little bit. I'm pretty sure my eyes are pretty dark."

Murphy has better career splits in day games, but that hasn't been true over the past few years.

I'm sure the scientific validity of that is right in line with Murphy's past philosophical pronouncements.

Guess he’s been right all along.  It’s pretty common knowledge that lighter eyes are more sensitive to sunlight.  Lighter eyes have less melanin which protects from the sun.